It’s almost Christmas and since speculation makes life interesting, here you go:

Apple has reportedly scheduled a media event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on Tuesday January 26th, 2010, for a major product announcement. Per the Financial Times, Apple has reportedly rented the stage for “several days” at the end of January. Officials with Apple and the center declined to comment.

Although it’s currently unknown what the media event will center around, reports have emerged from the Times stated that Apple’s long-awaited tablet device was due for a January, 2010 unveiling and would go into mass production soon after. Additional reports have surfaced that Apple is in negotiation with TV networks to hash out subscription plans and content for video on the iTunes Store.

Another report stated that a tablet with a 7″ screen was due to be announced in January. This differs from long-standing reports of a device with a 10″ touchscreen, albeit Apple could be manufacturing two differently sized units.

Web blog Silicon Alley Insider was reportedly told by a source that Apple asked developers to prepare full screen versions of their apps for a January demo. Apple has apparently requested that the software in question scale beyond the 320 x 480 pixel size of the current iPhone and iPod touch screen, but said that applications that can accommodate the larger screen size will run “just fine” on the new device.